History Exam
by Lucillia
Summary: After witnessing a visit from a future Hokage and an Academy graduating class, and learning how future history remembers him, Sasuke decides to change his life and model himself and his clan after the greatest person the Uchiha Clan ever produced...Obito. Has become AU due to recent events in the Manga.
1. A Chance For a New World

The old man smiled as he greeted the final year academy students as he did at this time every year. Every year since he became Hokage, he had had the honor of giving this particular, and exceedingly special history test. The Final Academy History Test was the one exam that the Academy students eagerly looked forward to from the first day they entered the Academy and heard about it, and this year when a vast number of the descendants of the group that had been known as the Konoha Twelve were graduating, he had a special treat in store. While he had an ulterior motive for giving these particular young students this particular treat, it was a treat none the less.

"I'm sure you all know what today is." the Hokage said to the students who squirmed in their seats with anticipation.

"It's our final history exam!" a rather loud brunette with bright blue eyes that had been inherited from her most famous ancestor yelled.

"Yes it is, and if you will wait patiently while I get everything set up, we'll soon get started. This year is going to be extra special." the aged Hokage said as he got the ink and his special brush out, his back already twinging in protest before he even knelt down to make the first seal.

He would normally have had his assistant draw the seals and simply powered them when they were completed, but this year they were going to be slightly modified and he didn't trust his assistant to get everything right. His predecessor who had invented the seal that the Academy usually used for this test had been working on this particular array when he had died, and it had taken many years since then to complete it, since he wasn't half the genius with seals that his predecessor had been. It was five minutes into the drawing of the seal before he made the first alteration to the array. After half an hour of drawing non-stop, he was finished. To anyone but a Seal Master, the array on the floor was indistinguishable from the one the Academy normally used.

Smiling at a job well done, he used a jutsu to quickly dry the ink on the floor before it could smudge and destroy all of the work he'd put into the seal, and called for the class to come forward and stand in the circle before he powered the array.

It was the knowledge he'd recently gained on the nature of time that had resulted in his final decision in regards to whether or not he should do this. He'd originally completed the array as more of an academic exercise, and hadn't originally planned on using it. Knowing that if he used it he would not be wiping out the entire world as he knew it on the vague hope that things would be better had given him the final push he'd needed. His world would still be there when the lesson was over, and the class returned to prepare for their Graduation Exam which would be taking place in the following week. But, a new world where at the very least one small change would have occurred would have been formed as well.

As images too fast to see swirled about the perimeter of the seal array, he took comfort in the fact that somewhere changes would be made, and in that place there would be a possibility that his predecessor's final wish would be fulfilled, and in a new world out there, a number of hardships would be avoided. While he personally found the person that this particular array had been created for to be completely unworthy, his predecessor had believed that there could have been some hope for him if he had been given all of the facts before he had made his decision. And, if that person had made the right decision, everything would have changed. Whether for better or worse, nobody would know until it happened.

Perhaps, when he was done here, he could find a way to make a seal in order to see how that other world had turned out, to see if his predecessor's greatest regret could turn into his predecessor's greatest triumph, his predecessor's legacy, much as this world here was.

"I hope you knew what you were doing Boss." Sarutobi Konohamaru, the Eighth Hokage of Konoha said as the images slowed to a stop and the class's surroundings became clearly defined.

**Edited on 4-18-12**


	2. The History Exam

Sasuke had jumped in surprise and reached for a kunai to defend himself with when the crowd of children his age led by an old man dressed as the Hokage appeared. Based on the reactions of the others in the room anxiously awaiting their team assignments, either he had been the only person to see them or everyone had gotten some memo he hadn't stating they should expect this and completely ignore it. He was betting on the former. The children in the group that had appeared out of nowhere and were apparently invisible to everyone but him gaped at him and his soon to be former classmates in amazement.

"Wow, it's Great-Grandpa Shikamaru!" a sandy haired boy yelled, pointing to the extremely lazy Nara who was resting his head on his desk.

"Shhh! Quiet Gaara. Dad told us to be on our best behavior around the Hokage." a nearly identical boy said as he punched him in the arm.

He relaxed slightly upon noticing that the group who either came from the future based on what he'd just heard or were more likely figments of an overactive imagination he hadn't realized he possessed hadn't made any threatening gestures and were content to stare at his classmates and comment. He would observe the situation further and alert someone if anything changed.

He had been focused on watching the old man in the Hokage robes breaking up the fight that had broken out between the twins that he barely even noticed when Sakura arrived and pushed the loudmouth Uzumaki away so she could take the seat next to him. He was still watching "Gaara" and "Shika" fight when the Uzumaki jumped in front of him, blocking his view. He'd looked up at the glaring boy and was prepared to say something when the Uzumaki was knocked over and landed on him with his lips touching his own in what looked like a kiss.

Everyone in the room including the seemingly invisible strangers stared at this in shock. A few of the girls in the group of strangers who seemed to be invisible to everyone else giggled.

"Ugh, no wonder why Boss would never talk about his first kiss." the old man in the Hokage robes - who now that he thought about it seemed to bear a striking resemblance to the third Hokage - said the instant before Sakura started wailing on the Uzumaki boy.

It was around this time that Umino had arrived bearing the clipboard with the team listings on it.

"I think I will start the history exam now." the old man said as he pulled out a clipboard of his own. "Can anyone tell me who the Instructor who is about to announce the Genin Teams is?"

A brunette with blue eyes raised her hand first, hopping up and down in excitement as she did so.

"Uzumaki Hinata?" the old man said, pointing at the girl.

"He is Umino Iruka." the girl said loudly, much like another Uzumaki who was in the room would have.

"Correct, and can anyone tell me why he was important?"

The boy called Shika who was one half of the brawling twins raised his hand this time.

"Nara Shikamaru?" the old man said.

"It's because he was the academy instructor who taught you and the Nandaime as well as many other famous shinobi over his career. Unlike the other academy instructors, he didn't neglect the Nandaime while he was in his class, and would interact with him rather than ignore him as he had been advised to by one of the senior instructors when he had first taken the position. The Seventh Hokage considered him to be a combination of an older brother and a father figure. It is believed that it was Iruka's influence that prevented the Seventh Hokage from becoming homicidal as many Jinchuriki such as his contemporary, my great-granduncle the Fifth Kazekage, had been before his confrontation with the Nandaime during the Invasion of Konoha by Otogakure and the forces of Sunagakure who had been tricked by Orochimaru into invading." the boy who shared a name with his lazy classmate said.

This boy however clearly wasn't lazy, and sounded as if he'd swallowed a textbook at some point. From the looks of things, he was clearly trying to impress the man who was dressed like a Hokage.

"Correct. I think we'll take a short break while Iruka announces the teams." the old man said.

He sat listening to the team assignments with half an ear as he contemplated what had been said. If these people were from the future and not a hallucination - he'd quickly ruled out Genjutsu after the "kiss" which had been one of the most mentally scarring experiences he'd ever lived through - one of his classmates was the future Nandaime. The future Seventh Hokage was something called a Jinchuriki - whatever the heck that was, probably a new or foreign Kekkei Genkai - and could have become homicidal if Umino hadn't been there for him. That, and the Academy Instructors had been neglecting his education somehow. If they were willing to do that to someone they disliked, would they give unearned grades to someone they held in high regard? Had all of his grades actually been earned? There had been times when he'd thought he'd done poorly on a written exam, but got his test back with exceedingly high marks.

That could be problematic, as if he didn't know where he was going wrong, he couldn't correct it, and that would be yet another weak spot that Itachi could stab on the day he finally confronted him. An imposing fortress could easily collapse if the foundation it was built on wasn't solid.

He barely noticed the commotion that had been caused by the Haruno girl, and the loudmouth Uzumaki when team 7 was called. He did however briefly wonder what was in the Hokage's pipe when he decided to put the idiot Uzumaki and the most rabid of his fangirls on his team. Them being Top Kunoichi and Dead Last weren't enough reason to torture him so, as far as he was concerned.

When the final team - Team Ten - was called, the old man turned back to the children.

"Does anybody know why Genin are put in teams of three?" the old man asked.

A chubby boy with fire red hair and Akimichi Clan markings on his cheeks waved his hand eagerly.

"Akimichi Hikaru?" the old man said, acknowledging the child with a small nod.

"It is so we can learn to work together before we are sent on more important missions. Most missions require a team of at least two shinobi, or more. Those that can't or won't work with others will most likely either get themselves and/or their teammates killed or cause the mission to fail." the excited redhead said.

"Correct. As one famous ninja said, 'Those who break the rules are trash, those that abandon their teammates are worse than trash.' Can you tell me who said this?" the old man asked.

Several hands started waving.

"Sato Teuchi?" the old man said as he pointed to a nondescript boy in the group.

"Uchiha Obito did on his last mission, before he sacrificed himself to rescue a teammate who had been captured by the enemy on that mission during the Third Great Shinobi War." the boy said.

"Correct. Did you read the Rokudaime's autobiography by any chance?" the old man asked.

"Yes sir, as well as the Nandaime's and yours." the boy said.

_Why would the Rokudaime write about one of my relatives? Unless something catastrophic happens, whoever this Obito person was would be well before his time since I never met him, and I would write about a more important relative like my father if I were Rokudaime. But, then again, the Nandaime is going to be one of my classmates, so it is possible that something catastrophic will happen, and the future Rokudaime would be someone from a prior generation. _Sasuke thought.

"Good. Can anybody tell me about team Ten?" the old man asked.

Several hands were raised in under a second.

"Yamanaka Akira?" the old man said, gesturing to a tall black haired boy who was possibly a descendant of the baby brother Ino had babbled about nonstop two years ago, before finally shutting up about him last year, and never mentioning him again as far as he could recall.

"Team Ten, also called Team Asuma was led by Sarutobi Asuma, the younger son of the Third Hokage and former member of the Guardian Shinobi Twelve. It was the second Ino-Shika-Cho team. The first Ino-Shika-Cho team had been composed of the fathers of the members of Team Ten. Its members are Nara Shikamaru the Shadow Warrior, Yamanaka Ino the Graceful Flame, and Akimichi Chouji the Human Battering Ram." the boy said in a dry tone as he rattled off information about the Lazy Slacker, the Fat Guy, and Rabid Fangirl #2's team.

"Correct. Can anybody tell me about Team Eight?" the old man asked.

Several hands shot into the air once more as the old man marked something down on his clipboard.

"Tanaka Chiyo?" the old man said gesturing to a blue haired girl.

"Team Eight, also known as Team Kurenai, led by Yuhi Kurenai - the fiancee of Sarutobi Asuma and mother of Yuhi Asuma - was composed of three tracking specialists, Hyuuga Hinata the Merciful, Inuzuka Kiba the Red Fang of Konoha, and Aburame Shino master of the Death Cloud. They were a team of nearly unparalleled tracking specialists who were often called on to support Hunter-Capturer teams in the field." the girl said.

"Correct. Can anyone tell me about Team Seven?" the old man asked.

Almost all of the children in the group raised their hands at once and began hopping up and down hoping to be noticed and called upon at this point. Apparently, his team was going to become very popular in the future. Most likely because of him. Anyone on his team wouldn't be able to help but become famous due to association.

"Yamada Ryo" the old man said smiling as he pointed to a boy with hair as pink as Haruno Sakura's and dark eyes that fortunately didn't resemble the Sharingan.

The boy puffed up with self-important pride, and the rest of the group groaned in disappointment.

"Team Seven, also called Team Kakashi and the Next Generation of Sannin was led by Rokudaime Hokage Hatake Kakashi the Copy Ninja, student of the Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato and teammate of Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin. Its members were the Toad Sage Uzumaki Naruto the Uniter, Wild Windstorm of Konoha, and Nandaime Hokage who had later trained under the previous Toad Sage Jiraiya, Haruno Sakura Iron Fist and Poison's Bane who later apprenticed herself to the Slug Sage and Godaime Hokage Senju Tsunade, and the traitor Uchiha Sasuke who left Konoha to apprentice himself under the missing-nin Orochimaru whom he later also betrayed." the boy said, glaring at Sasuke when he spoke of him.

"Correct. Can anyone tell me some of the reasons behind why Team Seven was formed?" the old man asked.

The children raised their hands as high as they could at this question.

"Iwako Ao, can you give me the reason the Seventh Hokage was placed on the team?" the old man asked, pointing to an odd looking boy with green hair.

"Because, due to their connection, Hatake Kakashi would not deliberately fail him or neglect his training until it was time to hand him off to Jiraiya as was previously arranged, as the Nandaime Hokage was the son of his mentor who had become a second father to him after the death of his own father, giving him an interest in keeping the Nandaime alive." the boy said.

Sasuke, who barely noticed the others filing out for lunch jumped at this. He'd been somewhat shocked at the fact that one of the children had named the Idiot Uzumaki as the Seventh Hokage, and called him a traitor who had betrayed both his village and the man who had taken him as an apprentice, but the announcement that the Dead Last was the Yondaime's son was a bit much. If he weren't so certain that this was beyond the Dead Last's meager abilities, he would have sworn that it was one of his pranks, as something like this was just up his alley.

He barely heard the small squeak behind him, as another student gave another part of the reason why Naruto had been placed on his team. Whirling around, he found that the room wasn't quite as empty as he'd believed, as Hyuuga Hinata sitting in the back of the room.

"You can see and hear them too? !" he asked, surprised.

"Uh, huh." the girl said blushing before looking away from him. "I think it's because there's something on the seal below them that has to do with eyes."

The group of children, who had been providing more information on exactly why the Dead Last was going to be awesome gaped at the two of them in wide eyed shock. The old man didn't seem surprised by the revelation that he and Hinata could see them, in fact, he seemed rather amused, as if he'd expected this from the start.

"We may be able to talk to them later," the old man said. "But for now, we will be continuing our history exam."

"Why would we want to talk to the traitor? I wouldn't mind talking to my namesake though." the Uzumaki girl grumbled. Several other children nodded in agreement as they raised their hands.

**Edited on 4-18-12.**

**Edited on 5-10-13.**


	3. The History Exam Part 2

"Can anyone tell me why Haruno Sakura was put on the team?" the old man asked, restarting the question and answer session after the interruption Sasuke and Hinata had caused.

Several hands were raised a second later.

"Morino Iruka?" the man said gesturing to a dark haired boy.

"Because the council members became aware of Sakura's crush and believed that she would be willing to breed with the Uchiha and restart the clan that was soon to die out. The Sandaime approved this placement at the urging of his former teammates despite his uncertainty due to the fact that she didn't seem to be taking life as a shinobi seriously, and was on the list of shinobi candidates most likely to wash out before the end of their first year." The boy started on something that he'd apparently memorized, quite possibly for this "test".

"Yamanaka Ino had been removed as a candidate because her father refused to give permission, and all other clans with female children the Uchiha's age had declined on the basis that their bloodline traits would interfere with the Sharingan. Whether or not this is so, is uncertain. Haruno Sakura came from a middle class merchant family that had desired the prestige of being tied to the Uchiha name, despite the fact that it had become infamous rather than famous in recent years, as they believed that the negative rumors associated with the clan would die down since they had pretty much died out." the boy who had been named for their instructor who would apparently be important in the future continued.

"The council had been hoping that she would manage to seduce the Uchiha relatively quickly and start on children as soon as she was able to reproduce. Her turning into a competent ninja had been an unexpected surprise, as had her marriage to ANBU Captain Yamato eight years later. Her descendants are famous for carrying the Mokuton Kekkei Genkai." the boy finished, before catching his breath, apparently proud of having memorized all of that.

Sasuke sat there sickened. The council had expected him to breed with the pink haired annoyance? !

While he wanted to dismiss all he was hearing as lies, there were some things that sounded plausible enough to be true. If, and that was a pretty big if, Uzumaki was the son of the Yondaime, it made sense that he would be trained by the Yondaime's student and teacher, and groomed for the position. He was oddly familiar with the Hokage, now that he thought about it. The reason for the Haruno's placement was plausible as well, as his name did carry weight, and his plan to kill Itachi to avenge the clan could lead to an early grave.

"Correct. Now can anyone tell me why Uchiha Sasuke had been placed on the team?" the old man asked.

Several hands went up.

"Hyuuga Midoriko?" the old man said pointing to a brown haired, white eyed girl that her hair up in a pair of pigtails.

"After the Uchiha clan turned traitor and the guilty were wiped out by ANBU Captain Uchiha Itachi on the orders of Danzo and senior council members Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura who had gone behind the back of the Hokage - who had only planned on only ordering the deaths of the conspirators in the plot to take over Konoha by force - and the innocent of the clan were murdered by the madman Tobi who had been posing as Uchiha Madara at the time who had come to take revenge against his clan for "turning against him", the Rokudaime was the only person left in Konoha besides Danzo with a Sharingan eye, and therefore the only one able to educate Uchiha Sasuke in its use. The Rokudaime had seen that Uchiha Sasuke was highly disturbed, and showing signs that he was willing to turn against his village as his father and many of his other relatives had done before they died, and initially refused to train him. He only relented after it was pointed out that he had owed a debt to Uchiha Obito who had saved his life at the cost of his own, and had given him one of his eyes before he died." the girl said.

Sasuke sat there stunned at the Hyuuga girl's revelation. He'd seen his elder clanmembers meeting at odd hours, and behaving strangely towards the end. Had it been because they had been planning a coup like the girl had said? The facts seemed to rather disturbingly fit.

"Can anybody tell me why Team 7 fell apart when this year's other graduating teams, Team 8 and Team 10, and last year's graduating team which formed the last of the so-called Konoha Twelve remained stable through several years and promotions?" the old man asked.

"Umino Mizuko?" the old man said pointing to a tan girl in Jeans and a t-shirt with an odd logo on it who was standing on her tippy toes as she waved her hand in the air excitedly.

"Unlike the members of Team Ten who had known each-other practically since birth, and Team Eight who were chosen for their tracking abilities and therefore had something in common since day one, the members of Team Seven had been selected for reasons other than the possibility of them working together. It had been hoped that they would learn to be a team along the way, especially as it would raise the chances of Haruno Sakura conceiving the Uchiha's child. While Uchiha Sasuke eventually did become friends with the Nandaime, he later tried to sacrifice him to get the Mangekyo Sharingan before he left Konoha. Haruno Sakura, who had been selected to breed with Uchiha Sasuke eventually managed to befriend the Seventh Hokage as well, but by then it was too late for the team. Unlike the Uchiha however, she became a true friend and teammate, later joining him, the Rokudaime, the ANBU Captain codenamed Yamato by the Godaime, and the Root member Sai as a member of Team Kakashi." the Umino girl who had also apparently memorized vast tracts of her history textbook said before pausing for breath.

"In the early days of Team Seven, Kakashi had noticed signs of increasing instability in the Uchiha and focused a great deal of his attention on him since he knew that Jiraya would eventually be training the Nandaime, inadvertently neglecting Haruno Sakura and the Nandaime's training in the process. The final fracture that had caused the team to split apart happened during the Chunin exams that took place soon after they graduated from the Academy. Orochimaru had given the Uchiha a curse mark and began negotiations for an apprenticeship contract with him in the Forest of Death during the second phase of the exams. After the second phase was over, the Rokudaime took the Uchiha for a month of training in a failed attempt to show him he could gain the power to defeat his brother who he was obsessed about killing without turning traitor to Konoha. Haruno Sakura, - who had failed the preliminaries - had been left to her own devices, and the Nandaime started his training with Jiraiya as had been previously arranged." the girl continued, finishing her rather long winded answer.

"Correct. Now can anyone tell me about the incident that precipitated Uchiha Sasuke's departure from Konoha." The old man said.

Several hands popped up instantly.

"Inuzuka Akamaru." the old man said, pointing to a sour looking boy with Hyuuga eyes.

"A two man team of Akatsuki members that had consisted of Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi arrived in Konoha seeking to capture the Nandaime so they could extract the Kyuubi from him. Upon learning that Itachi - who had actually joined the Akatsuki to monitor the organization and the man he believed to be Uchiha Madara - was in the area, Uchiha Sasuke had wildly rushed off to face him. He met him at an inn outside Konoha at which the Nandaime and the Toad Sage Jiraiya who had started their search for the Godaime were staying. Uchiha Itachi easily dodged Uchiha Sasuke's crazed attack, and swiftly defeated him before he was forced to leave the hotel with his partner empty-handed due to Jiraiya's interference. Shortly after this incident, Uchiha Sasuke accepted Orochimaru's apprenticeship contract in an attempt to gain the power to kill the brother who had spared him because he'd been innocent of the treason his parents and cousins had committed, and who had convinced Tobi to spare him at an exceedingly high cost to himself. While it can be argued that both master and apprentice had broken the terms of the contract, the fact remains that the Uchiha had betrayed his master three years later." the boy who was apparently one of the class overachievers said.

"Correct. I see that you have read The Uchiha Cycle. It is amazingly accurate for something that had been pieced together from documents that had been long buried and interviews from decades after the events. The way it paints Uchiha Sasuke as a villain on par with his ancestor Madara the entire time, rather than the victim he had started out as however..." the old man said.

"But Hokage-sama, he turned against everyone who cared for him, used the people around him including his teacher and his master to further his ambitions, and tried to burn Konoha to the ground!" the Inuzuka boy yelled.

"The fact remains that before Uchiha Sasuke became the traitor he was, he'd been a scared little boy who had come home to find his entire clan including his parents, and some of the family pets dead at the hands of his brother, and unknown to him, another relative. Almost immediately after he found his brother standing over the corpses of his parents, one of whom had been planning a takeover of Konoha that would have resulted in a civil war that would have brought the entire Fire Country to its knees, he was stuck in one of the worst torture techniques the Mangekyo Sharingan had to offer. In the five seconds in which Tobi slipped away unnoticed, Sasuke was forced to watch the murder of his family over and over for a period of six days. Uchiha Itachi had done this for several reasons, the first of which was so Sasuke wouldn't see the man he believed to be Madara and later say something that would get him killed, the second was to make absolutely sure that he knew nothing of what his clan had been plotting since his survival depended on his total innocence and in this case ignorance, and the third had been to make him angry enough to kill him for what he had done to his family even though it had been to prevent a war that could have destroyed Fire Country and devastated several others before it was over. Unfortunately, the last one had been most effective I'm afraid, and Sasuke became obsessed with killing his brother. Once his brother was gone and he learned of the council's deeds, he turned his anger on Konoha. If he had ever succeeded in destroying Konoha, his next target would have been Tobi and the revived Uchiha Madara had they survived the Fourth Shinobi War, and after that, god only knows who he would have gone on to kill or why. He didn't start out to be a traitor, but he really didn't try to stop himself when the time to make a decision came." the old man said, sounding as if he had grown fed up with the subject.

"Can anyone tell me about the history of the Academy?" the old man asked, getting back to the test he was giving his students, the portion of the exam on Team 7 apparently being over.

The history lesson/oral exam given by the Hachidaime Hokage who was apparently the Sandaime's grandson, as one question revealed, continued well into the afternoon, only stopping after the perpetually tardy Rokudaime Hokage Hatake Kakashi who had acquired the title of the Barely Willing Hokage had arrived and ordered his new team to meet him on the roof. He'd wondered how he'd gotten that title for nearly five minutes before the question had been answered by one of the quieter students who had apparently been the man's descendant. Apparently, after Tsunade had been forced to step down after being crippled in battle, he had been forced to take the position as the Dead Last had been declared not yet ready, and the other candidate for the position would have refused to name him as his successor out of spite.

Learning that his "lone avenger" behavior had been encouraged by certain parties in the hopes of him getting himself killed, causing the last traces of the Uchiha clan to be removed from the village, and that his arrogant behavior had gone uncorrected for similar reasons had been a blow. Apparently, he and his future self had made a number of enemies without caring or realizing, and had burned through political capital that would have come in handy later without noticing.

The Reluctant Rokudaime had? will have had? tried to help him in those areas, but eventually gave? will have given? up and stuck to teaching him jutsus.

The brief conversation with the students after the test had ended, and each student had answered at least one question had been filled with a bunch of "How could you?"s over various things he'd not yet done. Having mistakes not yet made thrown in your face was quite the novel experience. Fortunately, now that he knew about them, he would be able to avoid a great deal of them in the future, if it played out the way that the group claimed it would.

As he listened to his teammates, a future medic nin who would surpass her teacher Tsunade, and the boy who would become one of the greatest if not the greatest Hokage introduce themselves to their new teacher, he wondered about his dream for the future. Desiring to kill someone who may have sacrificed everything for him and the village as a whole if what he'd seen earlier was to be believed seemed...off. That, and there was no way in hell he would allow anyone to wipe away the memory of his clan who had founded this village alongside the Senju and patrolled its streets for generations.

"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are many things I dislike. As for things I like...I like onigiri stuffed with Okaka and tomatoes. My dream for the future is...to restore my clan."

* * *

Sasuke shivered as he wandered through the empty streets and abandoned buildings he'd once called home when he should have been resting or preparing for the next day's test. He had gone back to the Uchiha district to find something that would prove whether or not the old man and his companions had been lying. Now that he knew he was actually looking for something, he started noticing things he hadn't before.

After hearing what the children had said, the secret beneath the tatami mat that Itachi had revealed had become clear. Itachi had pretty much told him that it had been a Uchiha who had turned the demon fox loose on the village, a Uchiha that had the Mangekyo Sharingan. He'd been too dense to realize it at the time.

A search of the homes in the district had turned up many incriminating things, most of them not even related to the supposed coup. Discovering what one of his favorite cousins had been into had turned his stomach. Considering the way these things had been hidden, it was almost as if the people they belonged to had been so confident that nobody would search for them that they'd barely made an effort to hide them. As if they had been confident that soon they wouldn't need to hide them...

He searched his own home last. His father had apparently been rather good at hiding things, and he was pretty sure he hadn't found everything. While there was the strong possibility that the things could have been planted after the death of the Uchiha in order to smear their reputation, he found himself believing that the other option was true. It explained why almost everyone who came to the house acted strangely and whispered when they thought he could overhear. It explained all of the strange meetings at odd hours that his father was constantly vanishing for, and it explained why the adults had started strolling around Konoha as if they owned the place near the end. It also explained why a large number of villagers had looked at their family with suspicion at times.

His father, the head of his clan, had sentenced the Uchiha to death with his greed and treachery.

He hadn't found anything incriminating in his mother's things, but hidden away amongst his mother's belongings - as if she were afraid someone would find and destroy it - was a picture of a young boy in a blue and orange coat wearing orange tinted goggles who was holding a small toddler. The label on the back of the photo said Cousin Obito and Itachi. This was the relative that was regarded as the best of the Uchiha clan in the future. This was the one who in the future would be remembered and held up as an example of a good Shinobi. This was the one who would be remembered with fondness rather than disgust.

The thing about Obito that caught his eye besides the grin that was nearly identical to that of his new teammate were the goggles. Despite their somewhat ridiculous appearance, they were a rather logical choice of equipment now that he thought about it. Not only would they keep out dust, several enemy weapons, and slow down or stop an attack to his eyes, but the tint would help reduce sun damage in the long run. They were the perfect choice for an Uchiha, and he honestly didn't know why they weren't standard equipment. Besides being one of the few Uchiha shinobi who hadn't turned traitor to Konoha, Obito was apparently one of the smartest.

**Edited on 4-18-12**

**Edited 5-10-13**


	4. A New Team is Born

As the sun rose on the nearly empty Uchiha District, Sasuke swore that he would restore his clan's honor, and rebuild it in an image he and the village his ancestors had helped create could truly be proud of. His father may have destroyed them all for reasons he didn't know and probably would never understand, but he would make his clan greater than it had been before their near complete destruction. He would make the clan greater than it had been at the peak of it's power.

While learning that his father and several others had been responsible for the clan's demise the night before had nearly destroyed him, he knew that he would have to move forward. He had been forced to move forward after Itachi and the Madara impostor had killed his family. Itachi killing to save his village and his country and his little brother, and the Madara impostor for shits and giggles apparently. He would move forward from this as well. He would become stronger, much as he had been forced to after his clan had died and he'd been left alone with nothing but the drive to avenge their deaths.

His clan as it had been was dead and gone. There was nothing he could do about that, but he could restore and reforge the clan and avenge the ones who died. He would still kill Itachi, but it would be because that was his brother's last wish, the last request he'd made of him while he tried to make him determined enough to live past the pain and trauma of losing his entire family to his father's ambitions. His father who had betrayed them all and only started paying attention to him when he began realizing that Itachi had put the village first. To avenge the clan, he would have to kill two incredibly strong opponents, a council member named Danzo who had a Sharingan eye that had been stolen from Shishui's corpse, his Council pets, and the Madara impostor who had also killed the Dead Last's mother.

The day he was powerful enough, the Madara impostor who had turned the Kyuubi loose on Konoha, causing blame to be placed on his clan by the villagers who knew that only a Uchiha could have done it, Danzo, and the rest of his Council cronies would be going down.

At the top of his list of things to do so he could avenge his clan was to get much stronger. That had always been at the top of his list, but he would have to carefully think about how he would be going about it now that he knew of a number of potential pitfalls that would destroy him on the way, and end up with him being a raving maniac that the Dead Last who was going to become Hokage had been forced to put down like a rabid animal.

He would need the proper equipment in order to get stronger, since a shinobi woud not survive without the proper tools. One item near the top of the list of equipment he made was a pair of goggles - like the ones he had seen in his mother's photograph - to protect his eyes since they would be his greatest weapon after his Sharingan activated. The Sharingan was a powerful weapon which would allow him to copy Jutsus and Taijutsu after only seeing it once. If he could figure out how to get the Mangekyo Sharingan without actually murdering someone, it would become even more powerful.

It wouldn't be of any use to him however if the first enemy ninja he came across realized that he was a Uchiha and blinded him.

After careful consideration, he realized that an optician would probably be the best choice to custom manufacture the goggles he had in mind. He would have to make an appointment after the test.

Speaking of the test...He was LATE!

* * *

Sasuke wasn't really in the mood for Kakashi's head games. He was tired, hungry, and a total emotional wreck. Learning that his family had committed the ultimate sin in the eyes of this and any other village for that matter, had been draining. He'd stayed up the entire night, and come out here late only to discover, that Kakashi was even later, and that he'd skipped the meager breakfast he was capable of preparing for nothing. Kakashi showed up several hours after his late arrival, after he had spent a long time stewing in his misery, hunger and anger. He knew that it was part of the test, but still...

As he stood there next to his future teammates who while having the potential to be great in the future were nothing now, Kakashi spoke the words that divided most teams and caused them to fail. Had he not known that the main purpose of being put on this squad had been to learn to work with others no matter how annoying he might find them or whether or not he hated their guts, he would have more than likely taken the bait. From the looks of things the Dead Last who grew up to be Hokage, and the fangirl Medic had taken the bait.

Two bells. Ostensibly, the person who didn't get a bell would be tied to a post and forced to watch the others eat their lunches before being sent back to the Academy. Such a situation would set each of the Genin to looking out for their own interests rather than forming a cohesive unit. There would be any number of missions that could potentially divide teams as this one would in the future. In reality, it didn't matter who did or didn't get the bells, the teams who didn't lay their personal interests aside and devote themselves to the success of the mission, and the unit as a whole that failed.

When Sakura hid after Kakashi announced the start to the test after the Loudmouthed Future Nandaime tried attacking him for whatever reason, he went and joined her in order to start planning strategy instead of picking his own hiding spot and setting up an ambush as he would have most likely done had he not known the purpose of this test. He half expected the Dead Last to follow since he was devoted to the Haruno girl at this point in time, but the boy decided to remain out in the open to confront Kakashi on his own instead. Perhaps they could use this as a distraction...

Now, if he could get the pink haired girl that had yet to grow up off his arm, and get her to say anything other than "Yes Sasuke-kun.", then maybe he could come up with a viable plan...

After dealing with the Dead Last who had displayed some sort of solid clone technique that he'd vaguely remembered seeing maybe once or twice before, Kakashi tried to separate him and Sakura with a Genjutsu/Ninjutsu combination, but the girl wasn't that easily gotten rid of once she'd gotten over the shock of whatever she'd seen in the Genjutsu. Listening to her cry over someone she barely knew beyond the point that she "wanted" him for some reason, and was determined to get him and marry him thanks to the guidance of her self serving parents and a conniving Council whether or not she actually loved him had grated on his nerves, especially considering the fact that that person was him.

Eventually, he and Sakura made their move when Kakashi was seemingly once more distracted by the Uzumaki who was hanging from a tree by his ankle after his natural caution was overruled by his desire for a bell and all it represented to him. As he and the Haruno girl approached the Jounin and their captive teammate, he heard Kakashi mutter "If I didn't know any better, I'd almost be willing to swear that that boy was Obito's reincarnation.". Interesting. The one who would become what could arguably be considered the best Hokage to rule over Konoha if that group from the future was to be believed was so similar to a member of his own family who was fondly remembered long after the clan went extinct that those who had known him in life were willing to swear that Naruto was him reborn.

Apparently, Obito was much greater than he thought, especially since he had so strongly influenced the Rokudaime Hokage. That shouldn't have been so surprising to him, considering the fact that Obito had been the Yondaime's student.

While he and the Haruno girl didn't manage to get the bells in that attack, they did manage to get Naruto down from the tree and hustle him into the bushes where they made another plan. While they failed to get the bells from the future Rokudaime Hokage before the time was up, they were informed that they had passed the test. Naruto wasn't tied to the stump for his abysmal performance, but he wasn't given lunch either, because he'd run around by himself making a nuisance of himself for so long before having to be told the purpose of the test by his smarter teammates.

Sasuke quickly masked the grimace he made upon tasting the first bite of the meal his new sensei Kakashi had given him after the end of the test. Kakashi's cooking was just as bad as his own was. The Uzumaki could have his lunch, he didn't want it, and he wasn't certain he could get rid of the aftertaste any time soon. He was going to go out and get something to eat as soon as the man released him.

"Here Naruto." he said as he shoved the bento towards his teammate who was rather rough around the edges at this point in time. Extremely rough around the edges. He could see some faint glimpses of the Hokage that the boy would one day become shining through though. The boy had a steel will, and refused to give up no matter how outclassed he was, and no matter how many times people tried to drag or throw him down.

"Thanks!" The Dead Last Hokage yelled as he accepted the bento with a bright grin before started shoveling the food into his mouth as if he were starving, barely taking the time to taste it if at all.

He was hit with the sudden realization that it was possible that the Dead Last really was starving. Considering how poor he looked, and where he lived, the fact that he didn't have parents to pay for things, or money he'd inherited from his family to pay for things, it was a disturbingly real possibility.

"You're welcome." he replied, rather than giving his usual noncommittal grunt, feeling a slight twinge of conscience over the fact that Naruto had been so grateful for something he would have otherwise chucked in the trash if the person who had given it to him hadn't been standing right there watching them.

The warm smile that the future Rokudaime gave him behind his mask made him feel even worse for some reason.

**Edited on 4-18-12**

**Edited 5-10-13**


	5. Goggles

After the new team Seven had been released to go do whatever it was when they were left to their own devices before they met the next day to have their official paperwork filed and their official Team Photograph taken, Sasuke decided to go into town and run a couple of errands. First and foremost of these tasks had been to go to one of his favorite restaurants to eat lunch. After a leisurely lunch in which he ate more than he usually ate in two days, and noticed that not all of the sidelong glances he received from the other patrons were admiring, he headed over to the optometrist's to see about the creation of his goggles.

The elderly optician who ran the place he had chosen to go to for his goggles bowed as he entered the shop. The old man who had obviously been a civilian all of his life since he had white hair and more of it in his ears than on his head had served the Uchiha family for his entire career which had spanned a few generations, and was one of the few non-Uchiha medics that the clan had trusted to care for them. He had been here once before, when he was a small child back before the massacre, and it hadn't been one of his favorite memories. Even now, he had been hesitant to set foot inside the shop/office.

He could still see the angry look that had been on his father's face when he'd been forced to leave the station and come down here in order to get him to behave. His mother had scheduled his eye exam for the one day his brother had agreed to train him, and he had fought her the entire way down here. Afterwards, he refused to cooperate with the optician, and he had stood there throwing a fit since his mother wouldn't let him go home to train with Itachi for over two hours. In the end, his father had had to come down to force him to cooperate.

He never did get that training session with Itachi.

"What can I get for you today Uchiha-sama?" the elderly man who wore rather thick glasses asked.

For the first time, he noticed that the "sama" honorific that had been appended to his name was slightly sarcastic, and winced. Before, he'd taken the use of the honorific as a sign of the respect he deserved for being an Uchiha. Now, he could see that he had been parading around the village as if he'd owned it like the members of his clan that had caused their downfall had done near the end. People had noticed, and disapproved.

The gifts that the villagers had given him - the gifts he'd felt entitled to when he even thought of them at all - hadn't been for his sake. Some of the shop owners in the village had given him freebies because they pitied the poor boy who had lost his entire family. Others had given him gifts because they wanted some of the power they believed that the Hokage and his council would bestow upon the last surviving member of one of the founding clans of Konoha. Others still had given him gifts in memory of specific members of the Uchiha clan that they had cared for.

Until now, he had taken all of their gifts and uses of the "Sama" honorific for granted and spurned their kindness, being especially cruel to those who gave him things out of pity. The clan had obviously fallen further in the eyes of the village because of his arrogance, and it had probably been the villagers' desire to not upset him further, or because they hadn't wanted to speak ill of the dead that had kept everyone from pointing that out.

"I would like a set of custom made goggles please." he said to the elderly optician who was probably just as happy to have him here as he was happy to be here, which was not very much at all.

The optician who obviously remembered his last visit and the screaming fit that had been involved seemed surprised by his politeness. In fact, a rather shocked expression crossed the man's face before it had vanished, and he could almost swear that the man had used a Genjutsu dispelling technique that just about every civilian who had regular dealings with Ninjas picked up in order not to get cheated. Oddly enough that stung more than the sarcastic honorific had.

"Did you have anything in particular in mind?" the man asked neutrally.

He pulled out the photograph of his brother and deceased cousin that had been amongst his mother's belongings.

"I would like something like these, but with clear sides so my peripheral vision isn't affected as much." he said as he handed the photograph over to the optician so he could examine it.

"Ah, I remember those. I created them for young Obito after he refused to wear glasses to correct his myopia." the man said, smiling fondly at the photograph.

There was a warmth in the man's eyes that he'd never directed at him on the few occasions he'd run into the man around town. Obito must have made a great impact to have been remembered so fondly so long after his death.

His pride almost caused him to leave after the aged medic's statement, but the logic he'd recently swore to listen to told him to stay. Knowing that if he backed out on this, he might back out on other things and eventually set himself on the path to becoming the traitor the children had spoken of, the traitor who was remembered with more disgust than the man who had set the Nine-tailed fox loose on Konoha twice, he remained. As he was being measured for his new goggles - something that oddly enough included an eye exam - the elderly optician told him the rather funny story of how Obito had gotten his own goggles.

There was genuine warmth in the man's tone as he regaled him with the tale. Warmth that had not been directed at him in a long time. He had driven away just about everybody who was willing to provide it, and his fangirls had seen him more as a prize to be won rather than as an actual person.

Two days later, the goggles were ready, and Sasuke ran over to get them first thing in the morning, before the day's training started. Once everything was done and paid for, and the fitting which had taken longer than expected was over, he found himself running to the training grounds that Kakashi had appropriated for their team as fast as his legs could carry him upon seeing the time. There was really no point in doing so however, since he was already extremely late, as in late enough that his sensei was probably already there.

"Sorry I'm late. The fitting for these took longer than expected." he said to the somewhat stunned group when he arrived to find that the team's sensei was indeed already there, as he held up a pair of transparent green goggles with a single green tinted lens on the front.

"Why?" Kakashi asked staring at the goggles with an odd look on what little of his face could be seen, a look that seemed to be torn between pain and nostalgia.

"Why what?" he asked, feeling somewhat unsettled by the look on his sensei's face.

"Why did you get those?" Kakashi - Kakashi-sensei, he'd need to remember the honorifics considering the fact that leaving them off was exceedingly rude, and wouldn't win him any friends in the long run - replied, pointing to his new goggles.

"Why not? They'll keep out dust, dirt, and enemy weapons. The first thing the enemy's going to go for once they figure out I'm an Uchiha is my eyes, and these will slow them down. Not only that, but they'll reduce damage from the sun in the long run." he replied as he put his goggles on so he would be used to the feel of them when he ran missions.

_Plus they'll take care of that slight distance problem without announcing my weakness like a pair of glasses would._ he silently added.

"You're copying me aren't you, jerk!" Naruto yelled, but didn't seem half as put out as he sounded.

"If you're referring to those ridiculous looking goggles you used to wear at the academy, then no. For one, these are much cooler than those were, and two, these won't reduce my peripheral vision to almost nothing." he said as he donned his goggles, noticing that everything was a bit sharper and more detailed, if slightly green tinted.

He had a sneaking suspicion as to why the Uzumaki had a pair of goggles that greatly reduced his peripheral vision, despite the dangers wearing such things would present to a ninja. The fact that the only time he'd seen the boy wearing them as goggles rather than pushed up on his forehead where his hitai-ate was now was had been when he seemed particularly depressed, seemed to confirm that suspicion. Naruto's goggles had been to block out the other villagers.

These goggles had most definitely been worth the cost however, and wouldn't be used to block everyone out. He could understand why Obito had chosen a similar pair which, now that he came to think of it, were orange. Orange like the trimming on his coat, and the clothes Naruto almost always wore...Orange and blue had been Obito's colors, though more blue than orange, and orange and blue were Naruto's colors. What an interesting coincidence...

If one believed in reincarnation, they would see why Kakashi-sensei had thought that Naruto was Obito reborn.

**Edited on 4-18-12**

**Edited 5-10-13**


	6. Of Wave and Untimely Demises

There was a world in which Uchiha Obito had done something his older self could only dream of doing in later years, he'd died at the age of thirteen. Rather than being given a minion to do his bidding, Madara who had gone mad in his youth after the loss of the last of his siblings which had taken place at the tail end of a generations long war which he'd been involved in practically since he was first able to walk and continued to remain mad in his old age had been left with the corpse of a boy who had breathed his last before he could heal him in a manner that would come to consume his body much the way Madara's poison words which were given as he was at his weakest would consume his heart and mind and possibly even his soul and leave him with only one goal in life, the fulfillment of Madara's vision.

Being the resourceful old man that he was, it was only expected that he would take advantage of the wealth of resources which had been laid at his feet. A wealth of resources which had included a rather unique Sharingan which had allowed its wielder to slip through space and into another dimension, a Sharingan which would allow him to travel great distances without traversing the space between, or become intangible by placing himself in the other dimension. Years before Orochimaru had perfected his body-hopping immortality technique, an old and dying Uchiha Madara poured his memories and his will into a vacant body which had been swiftly repaired as one of his assistants kept the blood circulating throughout, rather than the Zetsu he had planned on using to further his plans.

His memories and will mind you, not his soul.

This had of course caused some confusion on the battlefield when there were two Madaras, one of which had been brought back by the Edo Tensei, but eventually the one wearing Obito's skin had been simply regarded as an impostor despite the fact that the truth of the matter had been a bit more complicated than that. It had almost been believed that the second Madara actually had been Obito, but the man had made one too many mistakes when attempting to destroy the morale of Obito's former comrades who had been amongst the strongest on the battlefield, and the charade was eventually discovered because Kakashi had asked a question only he and Obito had known the answer to since the answer was related to one of those "You had to have been there" moments which had something to do with a situation that "Shall never be spoken of again", and "Obito" had failed to answer and attempted to bluff his way out of it. While Madara's creation had done his homework, he had apparently not done enough of it.

When the Eighth Hokage had arrived in the past and created a world that had branched out on its own, he had rather fortunately arrived far too late to change a single thing about this, and a young Obito had had a chance to be in the afterlife with Rin who'd arrived later, and Minato after that where he belonged.

It was because this Obito had died so young before he could betray his principles as he fell into madness and kept on falling that he had become and remained so great. After all, there were few others in the Uchiha clan who could compare to him when it came to loyalty to the village, and espousing the virtues of the Will of Fire as he had been at that age, and there had been nothing later to besmirch the reputation he'd earned when he was thirteen.

It was into this world that our Sasuke was born, a Sasuke who became determined to be what Obito could have been if he had died the day he had saved his teammates from the enemy, uncaring of the mission and the potential consequences of failing it. It was into this world that Sasuke intended to follow the maxim of "Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash." to the best of his abilities. Rather than sit there coldly lost in his own world stewing over revenge fantasies and his own inadequacies which would prevent him from carrying said scnarios out while he waited for Kakashi to arrive for that day's training and/or missions, Sasuke made actual attempts to interact with his teammates.

When he showed up on time that was...

As Sasuke had opened his eyes to the villagers and what was actually going on in the village around him rather than churlishly taking whatever they chose to give him and otherwise ignoring them, the helpful nature he'd possessed which had been almost completely buried following the Massacre had begun to rise to the forefront once more. Rather than helping his mother around the house as he used to since he no longer had a mother to help around the house, he began to help people around the village when he saw they needed help.

As far as he'd known, that had been what the Konoha Military Police before they'd been disbanded following the massacre since virtually the entire force had been Uchiha and there hadn't been enough members to hold it together and politics had prevented them from being handed over to another clan, and nobody had thought to create a government office in the village to deal with what was left of them them and take charge of recruitment had been for after all.

The villagers who'd been familiar of the brooding child who'd wandered past them without a word or a greeting, ignoring their very existence, had been rather wary at first. A few had even made gestures to ward off evil the first time they'd seen him smile as he'd helped an elderly man who'd tripped and fallen up rather than continue by him as if he had not been there. There had even been some questions by some ANBU who had invaded his home before he'd told them to shove off and that what he chose to do and why was his own business.

After a rather comprehensive medical exam, people had eventually quit asking, and started getting used to the new Sasuke who would stop and help old ladies bring their groceries home, and rescue small children from bullies, and help get carts unstuck from the mud. The wondered how long it would last, and if maybe an exorcism was in order, but since the child was behaving nicely and not hurting anybody as far as they knew, they didn't call out one of the local priests to deal with it.

An interesting side-effect of Sasuke's new behavior was that as Sakura spent time around him and got to know the real him, she became less interested in him. A mystery was romantic. An enigma was romantic. A wounded soul that she could help heal with her love was romantic. A rather ordinary boy who was no-longer such a mystery wrapped in an enigma that got into the occasional scuffle with Naruto, and kept tossing her scrolls on Medical Jutsu didn't seem quite as interesting as the cool quiet boy who would go off and be alone.

Of course, Sasuke would never know that his behavior which was so far out of his norms that it was making even people who didn't know him nervous would cause a bridge in Wave to be called the Great Zabuza bridge.

When a team of Chunin had been sent to Wave in Team 7's stead despite Naruto's whining for a better mission and declaration that he was ready, because the Hokage didn't think he could trust Sasuke outside of the village, Zabuza had managed to complete his mission with nary a hitch. That of course had led to Gato bringing in mercenaries he'd had laying in wait for the occasion of Tazuna's death to deal with Zabuza and his accomplice before they crushed the last of the will of the people in Wave and forced the Daimyo to cede all of his lands to him.

There had been a massive battle on the mostly completed bridge in which Zabuza had been killed and his accomplice Haku badly injured after Zabuza had gotten in the way of a fatal blow. Also killed in the battle had been the cheapskate Gato himself who had taken his position at the head of the mercenary army in order to further dispirit the people of the land. Following the battle on the bridge, Tazuna's daughter Tsunami who had learned at her father's knee ever since she was a small child, often accompanying him to work, took over from where her father left off, and the bridge to the mainland was completed a couple weeks behind schedule, and named after the man who had freed Wave, even if that hadn't been his objective.

As a result of this turn of events Inari, who had a different hero since he never met Naruto, left with the boy Haku that he'd been tending to when the older boy had decided to return to Kirigakure in order to join the resistance and complete Zabuza's dream since his master wasn't there to do so himself upon his recovery.


End file.
